EEG News

As I said last night, I needed some time to digest the outcome of yesterday's EEG.

So, here we go...

There was no improvement whatsoever in Taylor's EEG yesterday. It shows a diffuse slow spike and wave pattern during wake and sleep. This goes along with the severity of the epilepsy. The diagnosis of Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome has officially been made. It's not a pretty picture, I attached a link to the name and you can click on it to read more.

Taylor has the three classic features of Lennox Gastaut:

1. frequent generalized seizures of different types
2. diffuse slow spikes and waves on the EEG
3. cognitive dysfunction

As my friend Carol (whose daughter has the same diagnosis) told me last night, it's just a name, they're still the same girls they were a month ago.

When I watched the EEG screen yesterday, I thought it looked the same as it had on Monday. So when Dr. Bello came in yesterday afternoon, I can't say I was really surprised that there had been no improvement.

The technician actually let me take pictures of the screen, so for those of you who are curious this is what it looked like...

And this is what a 'normal' EEG looks like...

Dr. Bello thinks there are two reasons why the seizure activity has suddenly increased:

1. The Vigabatrin could be making it worse. This is the medication Taylor's been on since she started having the Infantile Spasms at 5 months old. He is weaning her off it quickly over the next week. As of last night the dose has been cut in half.
2. The natural history of the condition: developmental delays, onset of Infantile spasms, multiple seizure types, settle into Lennox-Gastaut.

Taylor's having significantly more of her myoclonic seizures which present as a startle seen usually as a jerk of her head and her eyes roll up. Now there's a lot of eye flutters with the rolling, which are also seizures. And most recently the atypical absense seizures, spells of staring and zoning out.

She's not yet having the typical tonic seizures of Lennox-Gastaut, which involve stiffening of just a few muscles or the whole body.

If weaning off the Vigabatrin does not bring her back to her baseline seizure activity, it is going to get a lot more difficult to control. So we are hoping for the best here.